alt Hacker NewsWhy is the world losing color?
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Not sure it's worth a whole blog post, but I think we have more ways to express ourselves than ever... the color hasn't gone, it's moved.
I might resell my house or my car but my PC is a like looking into a rainbow supernova. My clothes have patterns and prints that weren't even technically possible 100 years ago. I can go buy paint for my walls at any hardware store that would cost a fortune during the renaissance. I can print any artwork I want at home at amazing quality or pay a little more for an even better pro print. I've got a number of screens in my house that can reproduce more colors than I can differentiate.
The world is more colorful than ever, I don't think we have to point to the tired car examples or temporary trends in home decoration or filmmaking and claim something's missing.
All cat tractors are yellow. Does this answer your question? A handful of companies make almost all products.
China is a concrete jungle anywhere you have a mass of cameras.
That about sums it up. Not whatever US-based fashion trend that you hate this week.
What I find infuriating is to see colors stripped from children’s toys and clothes, especially by Northern Europe brands. Those dull beige taupe tones might attract parents but I’m sure that they bring little joy and stimulation to children.
Adolf Loos designed some incredibly sumptuous interiors. They aren't lacking in color. Methinks he's being used unjustly as a scapegoat to grind some axe. To me, this essay is an example of "slop."
Color is the last vestige of ornamentation[1].
Modern design didn’t kill color. It put it on probation. Stripped of aesthetic authority, color now has to justify its existence or get cut. No more freedom to wander or express, it shows up for assigned tasks only: branding, signage, error states, traffic lights.
In the cult of "form follows function," color met the axe. We no longer trust it to create, only to comply. Expressiveness? No. Just signal. Never art. A century after Ornament and Crime, we put color on a PIP. Beauty must be functionalized.
I play boardgames. I am also visually imppaired. So for me functionality is a massive issue. Readability is a massive issue. Being "pretty" is not an issue.
In this class of games, it's common for a game to be printed, possibly have several printings, and then go out of print. For particularly sticky games, they may come back with a reprint or redesign years later. And I've noticed going back decades that the redesign almost always replaces bold, functional, high-contrast designs for low-contrast, "realistic", "pretty' designs. Examples:
- Brass: original [1] vs redesign [2]
- Titan: original [3] vs redesign [4]
- Saint Petersburg: original [5] vs redesign [6]
I don't know why this is but part of it comes down to people wanting to add "value" by changing things rather than just reprinting them. But why go "realistic"? I think there's a pervasive idea in this space that "realism" is good. So that's a trend.
Cars go beyond color. Cars become a white or other neutral color because it's the least potentially "offensive". Car makers want the largest possible market. Plus companies like Hertz want this kind of car. But look at cars from the 1950s through 1980s and on top of color you have a lot of cosmetic design choices that we don't have now because they're less aerodynamic but, more importantly, cheaper.
In a way, the car ceased to become an object of expression. Instead for many people it's just pure utility. So the designs became utilitarian. You may disagree because people are very opinionated on what cars they prefer but I think that just expresses brand preferences not aesthetic choices.
Chain restaurants also exhibit this trend. Compare McDonald's from the 1980s vs now. A lot of fast food restaurants are now much harder to distinguish.
[1]: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/4265429/brass-lancashire
[2]: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1278376/brass-lancashire
Colors aren’t cool. You know what’s cool? Clean perfect lines, rich texture and materials. Imagine a cube of polished concrete stone, with a wood plank sanded and stained to a warm perfection, basking in the glow of a square window at a perfect 45 degree angle. Beautiful, it can move you to tears.
This worship of color is how you end up with Gen Z who paint over beautiful bare wood furniture and cabinets. Enraging.
go outside!
I've been interested in the subconscious emotional response to colour for a long time now and have a kind of autistic obsession with the colour selections of myself and others (especially the colour of clothes). None of what I'm about to say is backed up by any reading or research I've done on this topic. This is all my opinion and experience, but I guess its somewhat topical and some people might find it interesting.
Many years back I used to practice social skills and pickup. I realised quite quickly while learning how to socialise that colour is one of the more important ways to alter how others perceive you prior to knowing you.
Specifically, greys and blacks were generally a bad choice and tended to signal low-confidence or a lack of character. There is an exception here for formal wear, but generic fashion choices like a black tshirt, grey shorts and black shoes will make you look devoid of personality. Always try to wear some colour if dressing casually and if you want to appear more friendly soft blues, greens and pinks I think are some of the most inviting colours.
Hot pink was one of my favourite colours to cautiously add when socialising as a guy in a casual setting because it can be quite an interesting colour choice. It's far less aggressive than a strong red, but almost equally as striking. And its purpose is more confusing (and therefore interesting) than other colours since it could both be a sign of a confident heterosexual guy, or an outwardly gay guy. For this reason I've found hot pink is a good colour to add if meeting girls in a casual setting because it can be initially sexually neutralising while also an indicator of confidence (being too sexually forward is generally a bad strategy).
However, in a formal settings whites and blacks are generally what you'll want to go with. Beige colours can also work, but might make you look a bit old fashioned today. I thought the reaction Jordan Peterson got when he starting wearing very colourful and striking suits was interesting because it confirmed a lot of my speculation around how people view colour in formal wear. It's very, very difficult to balance class with colour. If you want to appear classy it's almost required that you stick with whites and blacks.
I personally suspect the world is losing colour because of the above two points – we associate class with neutral colours (blacks and whites generally) and strong colours can impose strong emotional responses which we might want to avoid (generally speaking anyway).
My guess is that if you saw a brightly coloured home or car you will have a sense that the person who owns that thing has a lack of class and a strong colour might even suggest something negative or unintended about the owner. For this reason you might be tempted to just stick with something neutral to avoid this. This would be especially true for colourful items of low value because creating a strong emotional reaction around an item of little value it's probably going be perceived as overwhelmingly negative. Hence why some teen driving fast in a bright red but inexpensive car can be aggravating, while someone else driving fast in a bright red Ferrari while not especially classy is still likely to be far less negatively perceived.
And beyond the class aspect, I'd suspect the lack of colour we see today is a reflection of our lower self-confidence both as individuals and culturally. I suspect people increasingly don't want to stand out or make an impression in public, and culturally in the West we're less confident and perhaps don't believe our public buildings deserve to be as striking or grand as they were in the past.
I don't really know why blacks and whites suggest class either. I suspect that's a cultural thing that could change, but perhaps that would first require us to be confident enough to make an emotional impression. Perhaps too much confidence is viewed as unclassy today, while being timid and softly spoken is generally seen more positively. Either way, even if you believe the world should be more colourful, I wouldn't suggest leading the way on that in your own life – at least not if you care about how others will perceive you.
> The underlying theory in all of these cases is that while color is sensory, unstable, and chaotic, form is rational, stable, and pure.
And pure reason is inhuman.
Color represents emotions, form represents reason. Since emotions is a big part of human nature, the loss of color means the western society has been sliding into a depression, and the west is depressed because it's falling under the influence of the origin of this colorless stereometric brutalism.
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Colour is a form of bling and bling is tasteless.
It is not.
If you feel so, it is a massive red flag that your brain is in a depressive state.
Source: fixed my mental demons and now the world is suddenly full of color and life, as if I was a child again
"The answer isn’t just about fashion or materials, but is rooted in a much older understanding of the relationship between color and truth."
Nah it's just fashion and materials. Even if you just look at apples product line, you can see they went from colorful plastic to monochrome metal and glass to how reintroducing colors to several of their product lines.
People want so badly for there to be underlying, global conspiracy that they see it everywhere.